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A volcanic summer vacation

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It's July so we planned the first summer adventure for everyone.  Annabelle was stoked to stay at her grandparent's house in Bremerton- where she could be doted upon for a week. Leading up to the trip she danced about the house chattering" I want you to take me to Papa and Mimi's house and leave and come back in 100 minute. No 100 days. No 100 years!!! Actually,  Ma Ma, I don't want you to ever come back". The standard four year old has more emotions in 10 minutes than a standard adult does all year long. The night we left for the trip she she ripped our souls out like a grapefruit spoon does to a grapefruit wedge- crying and clinging " I don't want you to leave". After much consoling and book reading we were able to leave and she was asleep.  In our eyes, Annabelle is a total bad ass - three foot tall trooper who is down for any type of outdoor adventure. That being said, hiking with a four year old is somewhat equivalent to  watching a short le

potato vacation in Hawaii !?!

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Is a bear catholic? Does the pope shit in the woods?! Heck yeah I'll go to Hawaii for a work trip.  Brandon and Annabelle joined me on the trip, excited for an adventure and for pineapples.  For two weeks  I was sent out to a oily red field covered in weeds during crappy weather while Brandon was killing it being a dad. The hotel pool was a three foot deep oasis for small kids - complete with an artificial waterfall and rock structure to jump off of. Brandon spent so much time in the pool his balls were soon saturated like two water logged raisins.  Annabelle learned how to swim so well she soon equaled Michael Phelps- but like Michael Phelps in little red ladybug lifejacket.  They took her swimming skills into the wild and Brandon soon had her swimming to shore from the paddle board and ocean snorkeling.  She was very excited about snorkeling,  Annabelle instructed " you put your breather in your mouth then go under water and look for stuff like fish and monies". Then sh

Santa Running

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Team Rouse has been running again.  With winter descending upon us we're discussing what event we should run next (and also more philosophical questions like why are we running and what are we running from). While out running, Brandon 'ran' into the Mount Erie runners a local group of legit trail runners. We couldn't believe we've never ran into any of the 40 bad ass trail runners crushing the most heinous trails that Anacortes has to offer. Probably because these guys are fast, and they're so legit, they trail-run at night. So, we started running with this group- a fast group for Brandon and a nice group of lady runners for Lisa.  The pace of a runner appears to be related to the length of their shorts. The shorter the runner shorts the faster their pace.  After daylight savings time all that was left of the Mount Erie Running group was runners wearing shorts, well above the thigh.  Lisa  just kept getting dropped and all she could see was a blur of  really sho

Half ass trip plan not half bad.

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Fall is upon us which means it's about to be dreadfully dark and rainy for 5 months straight. Which  means it's time to get out of here and squeeze in one more biking trip.  We half ass planned a trip to go ride the rest of the Oregon scenic bikeways on our tandem and van camp in between. Since the trip was planned half ass planned -we threw a bunch of random shit in the van without a real plan including our mountain bikes and  a bunch of camping chairs that were totally in our way that we used once.  Because if you  have less of a plan more shit can compensate for that. Really it was less than quarter ass planned, but no one uses that terminology so for simplicity we will stick with half assing with a lot of things packed into that van.  Our asses started on a trail dubbed Tualtin Valley Scenic byway. Our "plan" was to camp at a campground near the middle and ride out and backs over two days to cover the 100 mile route. We had a real campground planned- maybe the onl